Doctor Sentenced on Obstruction of Justice Charge
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 07, 2009 |
WASHINGTON—Dr. Joel S. Ganz, a practicing psychiatrist, has been sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and to perform 100 hours of community service for obstructing a health care investigation, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, announced today.
Dr. Ganz, 73, of Rockville, Maryland, pleaded guilty on August 12, 2008, and was sentenced this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Judge Rosemary M. Collyer on one count of obstruction of a criminal investigation of a health care offense.
According to the pleadings filed in court, the defendant, Joel S. Ganz, is a licensed medical doctor in the District of Columbia, with a psychiatric practice. Beginning in early 2005, he was under investigation for possible fraudulent conduct in billing Medicaid for psychiatric consultation services regarding developmentally disabled group home residents. Dr. Ganz was aware of the pendency of the investigation by late 2006. Sometime within the course of the government's investigation of this matter, Dr. Ganz created medical records "documenting" services provided on behalf of Medicaid residents. These records purported to show that Dr. Ganz provided services to various residents of the group home. However, these records had been created by Dr. Ganz after the fact so as to render them exculpatory. In the spring of 2007, Dr. Ganz caused these false records to be provided to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia in an attempt to cause the investigation to be closed without charges being brought against him.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor and Assistant Director in Charge Persichini commended Special Agent Christine Scanlon of the FBI, formerly of the Washington Field Office. In addition, they commended Legal Assistant April Peeler, Paralegal Specialist Diane Hayes, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia Cheatham.